The invention relates to a motion simulator comprising a cabin which is supported on the ground by at least three legs that are each pivotable about a horizontal axis, and a pivotal drive for each leg.
Motion simulators are frequently used as flight or drive simulators, for example as a training device in the training of pilots, or else as a game apparatus in the amusement industry. The basic principle of such motion simulators consists of tilting the cabin about a longitudinal axis and/or a transverse axis, in order to utilise gravity for simulating the forces of inertia associated with acceleration, braking or driving through curves. Thus, the cabin must be suspended such that it can perform movements within a certain range in at least two, preferably three or more degrees of freedom.
Commonly used are suspensions employing so-called hexapodes which enable a movement in all six degrees of freedom but have a very complex construction and require a complex control. In addition, these suspensions have the drawback that the hexapodes must be stably anchored in the ground and are relatively bulky, so that a correspondingly large installation area is required and the cabin must have a comparatively large entry height.
EP-B-0 137 870 discloses a motion simulator of the type indicated above, in which the cabin is suspended at three legs having a T-shaped configuration in plan view. Each leg is configured as a pair of scissors and has a substantially vertical arm which is supported on the ground and the upper end of which is connected through a substantially horizontal hinge axis with a substantially horizontal arm the free end of which is again pivotally connected to the cabin. A drive cylinder serving as pivotal drive is associated with each leg, so that the opening angle of the scissors and hence the height of the corresponding pivotal joint of the cabin above the ground can be varied. Thus, three degrees of freedom are made possible, namely rotations about the longitudinal axis and the transverse axis as well as translations in vertical direction. Although this construction permits to lower the cabin in order to reduce the entry height, it has the drawback that a relatively complex construction of pivotal joints is required. In addition, the movements of the two legs opposing each other must be coordinated such that the pivotal axis of the third leg always maintains its orientation in spcae. This requires a complex control. Since the pivotal axes of the three legs are always in parallel with the bottom surface and, in addition, the two parallel pivotal axes of the legs that are opposing each other are always perpendicular to the pivotal axis of the third leg, the cabin cannot make translational movement in the horizontal plane.